Archive for the 'India' Category

I cant wait for this movie to be released in India… Have only heard positives about this Danny Boyle flick. It is said that this movie can bring home an Oscar for Rahman.

Here goes the A R Rahman Interview on New York Times for Slumdog millionaire…

In India, fans love A.R. Rahman almost as we love David Archuleta — and he’s reportedly sold a few more albums: 100 million records and 200 million cassettes. A huge pop star in South Asia, he’s famous for scoring Indian classics like Rojaand Lagaan (among the dozens of other films) — and he’s recently begun to cross over into Hollywood with Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Bombay Dreams. We spoke with him about his Slumdog Millionaire score — which Fox Searchlight is pushing for an Oscar — and his collaboration with M.I.A.

How’d you hook up with Danny Boyle?
I literally had to leave another film to do this. When Danny met me, he said, “I’ve heard a lot of your stuff’ and he talked about it. That’s about the first time I’ve heard a compliment from a Western director, apart from Andrew Webber. He’s a good human being.

Was it different working with him than a Bollywood director?
Usually, it’s very different. Danny used my stuff in a very different way. I really loved the film, so I would compose pieces to fit the images, so I would do a lot of templates. With this, there’s not many cues in the film. Usually a big film has 130 cues. This had just seventeen or eighteen: the end credits, beginning credits, that stuff.

What were you going for?
A lot of things. I had to do stuff from modern India, eighties Hindi film soundtracks, mixing modern India and the old India.

What did Boyle suggest?
He wanted something very pulse-y. He said he hated sentiment, hated cello. No cellos! He said, “Never put a cello in my film” — he was funny. I worked fast, like him. It took two months of planning, two weeks of completing. Usually it takes six months with the musical films I’m doing in India.

The soundtrack really drives the film. That seems like something Boyle has in common with Bollywood. Do you think so?
What’s good about [Boyle] is that he likes how Indian films mix music. You push it and it comes out. We wanted it edgy, upfront. He said every piece of music was going to be a piece by itself. Normally some directors suppress music — they always want the effects to be loud and the music to be softer. Danny wanted it loud.

And you worked with M.I.A. on a new track.
We met before but never worked before. M.I.A., she’s a real powerhouse. Somebody played me her CD and I thought, Who’s this girl? She came here and knew all my work, had followed my work for ages. I said “Cut the crap,” this “my idol” crap. You have to teach me. We started working in India, then we e-mailed the track back and forth. She did the vocals in England. I did the rest in India.

How does the film’s Mumbai compare to the real thing?
For me, it’s not about India at all. It’s about human emotion, how we suppress so much and it all comes out. It’s a human film, not about India at all. The soundtrack isn’t about India or Indian culture. The story could happen anywhere: China, Brazil, anywhere. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is on in every damn country.

Just came across this video on YouTube… First I am i had ever heared to a mal rock song. And trust me it rocked! .. I like bands from kerala like motherjane or slingshot and this is another band which adds to my favorites list .. Avial. Check out the video n the song below… its surely India’s answer to Linkin Park 🙂

“Thinking is progress. Non-thinking is stagnation of the individual, organisation and the country. Thinking leads to action. Knowledge without action is useless and irrelevant. Knowledge with action, converts adversity into prosperity. “

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam

If every one had the same thoughts for our country as him, then today we would have been living in a heaven called India!

The Bombay High Court’s Aurangabad bench has served a notice on Google for allowing a hate campaign against India on its social-networking site orkut.com.

The order was issued on Monday in response to a public-interest petition filed by Yugant Marlapalle, an advocate in Aurangabad. Google has six weeks to respond. The petition said a community called ‘We Hate India’ — full of anti-India propaganda and with a picture of the Tricolour being burnt — has been created on Orkut. It sought the removal of the community from the site.

The ‘We Hate India’ group currently has 103 members, almost all of whom are from Pakistan. The site’s creator calls himself Miraslov Stankovic and claims he is based in Russia. His other Orkut communities include “Israel Must be Destroyed” and “I Hate Himesh Reshammiya”.

I can understand that there can be some one who hates Mr Nasal Reshammiya, but why India.

And what I cannot understand is why is Orkut being blammed for such communities.Orkut’s terms of service says it may, but shall have no obligation to, remove materials that it determines in its sole discretion are unlawful and objectionable.

Orkut has faced issues before, most notable in Brazil where a Federal Judge in Brazil named Jose Marcos Lunardelli ordered Google to release Orkut user’s information by September 28th. The judge ordered Google to pay $23,000 per day in fines until the information is turned over to the Brazilian government. The information the government is requesting would be used to identify individuals that are spreading child pornography and hate speech, according to the Brazilian government. As of September 27th 2006 Google has stated that they will not release the information and will instead file a brief explaining why they refuse to release the information.

Orkut is most popular in Brazil (63%), then in the US (13.8%) and then in India (9.5%).

Orkut is banned in Iran and the UAE. Orkut was very popular in Iran, but the website is blocked by the government. As they say, this is due to national security issues, as orkut users have the ability to spread messages rapidly, but the government says it’s due to Islamic ethical issues about dating and match making

What would be India’s next action? Ban orkut in India. Well i am sure the indian government would not be so harsh to orkut, but i don’t trust the government either, if you remember a couple of months ago indian ISPs blocked some popular blog sites.

Well we would have to wait for the decesion! As an orkut user, i hope it to be positive.